


Interlude

by thepeskyunicorn



Category: History Boys (2006)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, But mostly fluff, M/M, Original Character Death(s), lockwood's funeral, second meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 08:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6976126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepeskyunicorn/pseuds/thepeskyunicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet again at Lockwood's funeral. Irwin's surprised he's even invited at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday present for Sam - hope you'll enjoy!

“I missed you”

Irwin swallows and looks away. “No, you don’t.”

It’s been six years, and it’s cruel irony, how they’d meet again at Lockwood’s funeral. Irwin’s surprised he’s even invited at all.

He’d braced himself for the inevitable, leaning hard on his cane and cursing the pain, and sure enough, there was Dakin. Still with that same shit eating grin and practiced swagger, but he’s older now, and wears his confidence like a well fitted suit rather than a shield.

Here they are, an ex-student and a man who used to be his teacher, on the stairs of the church, one who has managed to run far far away from provincial Sheffield, and the other still very much in love with him. Pathetic, really.

So when Dakin reaches out to touch his shoulder, to look him in the eye and say in a voice so soft that he has to strain to hear, “I missed you”,

Irwin chose not to believe.

*

 

It’s insane. He’s insane. That’s the only explanation why he’s sitting in a trendy London bar, terrified out of his wits, opposite a visibly bemused Dakin. 

Dakin, damn him, had leaned in close, so close that he could see the flecks of gold in his eyes and whispered, “So, how about a drink? For old time’s sake.” and a smirk on his face like the last ten years hadn’t been a mistake, a living of the carnage that has been the same conversation. 

He has time to muse this over on the walk over to the coffee shop, both of them uncomfortably silent as it only could with another too distant to call a friend but too intimate to dismiss as an acquaintance. He lets himself be led with the unknown feeling in the pit of his gut.

Maybe it’s just that, the fear that it would all happen again, that it would all accumulate to another six years, another funeral, another load of regret, that made him nod his head and say yes. The thought of his face, nestled Lockwood’s ambiguously empty coffin, makes him shiver. He’s almost thirty five, and if it were any good time to start living, shouldn’t it be now?

Of course, it doesn’t mean he still won’t be scared out of his wits, throat too dry to swallow any of the coffee on the table. Dakin, on the other hand, has taken to lounging on the chair (Dakin only ever lounges, he realised), and fixing a peculiar stare at him in between sips.

Dakin, in an uncharacteristic show of pity - and what a strange concept, to think of him as anything other than cruel - began to talk. They started on the safe track, little snippets of their lives condensed into polite conversation, traded over the too sweet coffee. 

Dakin is a tax lawyer, and the money's incredible, apparently, but Irwin doesn't miss the twist of discontent along his lips. He really should stop staring at his lips.  He works in a firm uptown, owns a swanky little apartment on the right side of the city, class and sophistication pressed into the creases of his clothes and lingering in his cologne.

Irwin, by comparison, feels positively shabby. Cutler’s hasn't changed much, but he wouldn't know, would he, what with the BBC picking up his show two years ago and the relative success that trailing on his coat tails. Not enough to make him recognizable on the streets, but enough that he gets asked to sign the occasional napkin or book.

“You've changed.”

Irwin doesn't know what made the words spill from his mouth, frank and honest tasting just a little to sharp. He rubs his knee absently, nervous habit which is as good a tell as any.

There is a flicker of surprise and smugness in Dakin’s eye; a vulnerability. Too young to smoothen the facade of a devil may care rake, then.

“Really? For better I hope.”

“Yes, for the better.” He tries for coyness. “I hope.”

Dakin’s lips curls into a genuine smile, and it really shouldn't make Irwin ache in all the wrong ways. He takes a sip from his mug just for something to do, wincing at the sugary hit of caffeine. Dakin’s smile widens at his grimace, eyes twinkling as he pointedly refused to touch his mug. “Shitty coffee, I know. But great atmosphere and a lovely view.” Irwin feels himself relax a fraction.

“How’s Oxford?” He asks awkwardly, shifting a little in the seat to get comfortable. “It must have been enlightening.”

“Oh yes,” Dakin says airily, taking a pretend sip from his cup. “Contrary to popular beliefs, they do teach us something useful once in awhile.”

“Really? Such as?”

“The usual.” There’s a playful light in Dakin’s eyes as he sets his cup down on the saucer almost daintily. “How to hold your liquor. How to smoke your way through an essay, how to pretend you’re better than others, how to make small talk with very important people.” He uncrosses his legs and leans forward, voice smokey low. “How to seduce.”

And there’s the insanity again, the way Dakin can make the space in the coffee shop tighten, shrink it to the one small point between them both, the chatter in the background receding to the tempo of his own excited heartbeat. They are in the self same spot as they were six years ago, and the cycle could be set and repeated if they wish it so.

But Irwin is sick of euphemisms, sick of alluding and inferring and beating around the bush. He’s too old for this, and the reckless soul of boyhood past whispers to him  _ “Carpe Diem” _ .

So instead he says, “Why don’t we put that skill to the test?” and watches as Dakin’s eyes clear and body unstiffen. We’re all right, he thinks, heart in his throat at their mutual uncertainty. We will be all right.

“There is no test,” Dakin scoffs, armor solid and up again as he rises from his seat. He courteously holds his hand out to help Irwin out his. “Poland is already giving in.”

Irwin had to grin at the phrase. “Cheeky little shite.” He mutters, retrieving his cane and stepping out together, the biting air almost a shock to him. He catches the corner of Dakin’s eyes crinkling in response as they make slow progress down the road, and suddenly, the pain in his knee doesn’t seem half bad after all.

They bump fingers on the wide sidewalk, standing as close as they would allow themselves, chatting about nothing in particular. Dakin still to have a soft spot for literature, particularly the romantics. 

“I didn’t peg you as the type,” Irwin says, when Dakin demands half laughingly in response to his noise of surprise at the revealed gobbet. “You were always so,” he paused, not knowing if Dakin would take it well. At the nudge against his elbow, he continues. “So ruthless. Always looking for a means to an end. Never stopping to smell the flowers.”

“And you would be an idiot to think otherwise.” Dakin says blandly, kicking at a stone on the sidewalk. The wind is starting to pick up, but the bus stop was still some way away. “All that sentimental shit, clogging up your arteries with their condolences and reminiscence, and yet I still devour it like a man starved.”

Irwin’s knees are starting to hurt, but with a bit of shifting, it was almost imperceptible. The ache would become unbearable after a while, but for the moment it seems that company has managed to soften it somewhat. “Age does funny things to you,” he says, thinking and not thinking at all, surface memory lighting on a boy with slicked back dark hair smirking in the hollow light of the classroom. “You try to reach that full circle, ouroboros swallowing its tail. But it never happens.”

Dakin snorts. “Listen to you, being all philosophical and suchlike. You’re barely older than I am.” His voice grows light, teasing. “Fame gone to your head then?”  

“Hardly.” Irwin scoffs, leaning heavily on his cane now. In the distance, the severe black of the bus stop grows distinctly larger. “Although I wouldn’t mind signing a few autographs if you’d like.”

Dakin moves subtly, surging forward a step or two, body twisting inwards against the bracing wind, until it no longer howls against their face. Irwin blinks in surprise and smiles gratefully. They continue in silence as Dakin watched his limp, lips pressed in a straight line when he stumps painfully along, loosening again when walking no longer hurts as much as it should.

They’re seated in the calm of the storm, gale whistling around the sturdy frame of the bus stop when Dakin turns to him, sly smile twisting his lips. “I can think of a few places you could autograph,” he says, eyes twinkling. “And maybe afterwards I could give you some of mine?”

This isn’t very much like the full circle they desire, or the closure they need - there are too many possibilities to address. But with rekindled embers in his cold cold heart and a certain smug, dark haired man, they could go off the tangent, say something different, divorce themselves from history repeating. Irwin was not sure he would let himself but - he could.

And so he does. He drags up ancient bravery he has kept stored up, of Harmodius and Aristogeiton and Achilles and Patroclus, to answer “Anywhere you wish; before, behind, between, above, below.”

He does not know if he did it justice, but between the bone chill of wind and the warm hand slowly creeping to cover his, Dakin’s smile is proof enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a drabble but it had a lot of potential so I decided to extend it.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
